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How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

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Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#301

Post by gambiting »

quanticle wrote: post #236
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is the same way you'd criticize a king, somebody you are beholden to. "Golly! I know you, the king, are not at fault, but some of these advisers of yours must have accidentally goofed up somewhere..." I don't buy it. People don't criticize a king at all . You don't criticize the communist party in Stalinist Russia, tactfully or otherwise. Doing that gets you sent to the gulag. The reason people say that it was…

I don't buy it. People don't criticize a king at all. You don't criticize the communist party in Stalinist Russia, tactfully or otherwise. Doing that gets you sent to the gulag That's not true. Even during the Stalinist period in Russia or the Maoist period in China, there was still criticism of the government. It's just that criticism was phrased in language that was politically acceptable to the leaders. Individual…

As a person coming from a country that used to be a Soviet republic for almost half a decade, I can only partially agree.

There was no place for criticism of the entire system. Doing that would get you a very brief visit from the local KGB department, followed by your swift disappearance, and seeing your family again was not-guaranteed beyond that point. And yes, you could criticise individual members of the government, and you could point out corruption. But there were two problems with this approach - everybody(and I mean everybody) were corrupt one way or another, you had to bribe officials to get anything done, and it wasn't frowned upon, it was just how things were. And the other problem was, that that particular person whom you are reporting for corruption might be a close friend of a local communist party member, in which case, it's you who is going to Siberia, not them. So yes, theoretically you could criticise. But it was very unsafe to do so. Authors especially had to find new ways to write books which contained symbolic criticism of the government,but not too obvious, so it would go through the censorship.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#302

Post by flyinRyan »

TomGullen wrote: post #160
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #16

You cannot wield the kind of economic power Google does and not be evil, at least for the working definition many people have of "evil". We've put a huge hunk of our intellectual and economic capital under the control of a marketing company. I really, really like Google, but I don't see this situation as being stable over a period of decades. Maybe 5-10 more years or so, but not a lot longer. These kinds of decisions…

Evil is a strong word with regards to the original article. Having a double standard in the commercial world for whatever reason ranks pretty low on my list of evil things. Banks have been far more evil but they are rarely referred to as such. I think when commenting on such matters it's important to remain proportional.

>Banks have been far more evil but they are rarely referred to as such.

What? For the past few years I haven't heard "bank" spoken without severe negative undertones and usually "evil" explicitly thrown in.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#303

Post by Nitramp »

jlgreco wrote: post #235
tehwalrus wrote: post #205

(from UK, and happy to accept your downvotes): I'm shocked that people litteraly sell knives designed to hurt people on the internet, and that people on HN come to the defence of these arms dealers . I assumed this was about kitchen knives when I clicked on the link. The US constitution was written with a right to bear arms so people could overthrow the government , not protect themselves from criminals. Since then,…

The only difference between my assisted opening knife and my paring knife is that the former is safe to put into my pocket. Same size, same blade shape, one lives in my kitchen cabinet and the other lives in my toolbag. I don't use the later for food because I don't want it to get sticky. How exactly does that make the later "designed to hurt people" ?

    the former is safe to put into my pocket
The spring is the difference. A switchblade (and "assisted opening" is just an obvious circumvention of those being banned) can be easily carried concealed and is a very deadly weapon in fights. That's why they are outlawed - legislation has decided that their potential utility (takes a second less to open?) doesn't outweigh their general danger to the public.

Note that all kinds of easy to carry knifes are not illegal, like hunting knifes or swiss army knifes.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#304

Post by Nitramp »

archon wrote: post #249
tehwalrus wrote: post #205

(from UK, and happy to accept your downvotes): I'm shocked that people litteraly sell knives designed to hurt people on the internet, and that people on HN come to the defence of these arms dealers . I assumed this was about kitchen knives when I clicked on the link. The US constitution was written with a right to bear arms so people could overthrow the government , not protect themselves from criminals. Since then,…

> This is the sole reason I would never ever consider living in the USA Just to provide a counter-anecdote, the fact that I couldn't legally own weapons capable of leveling the playing field between me and an armed criminal makes me disinclined to ever consider living in the UK. The best I can do for protection is a baseball bat? Terrifying.

I think "levelling the playing field" is a very dangerous assumption. You're not levelling the playing field - the person you are thinking about fighting is a criminal. He will have much less restraint in using force than you will, so he'll be at a massive advantage. On top of that, given that robbing people might be his full time occupation, he'll try to be armed better than you are, so you don't put up resistance (he has no interest in being killed or killing you, after all).

So essentially you're triggering an arms race, the results of which can be seen in the US.

The European (or possible "every other developed country") approach is to not even try to fight criminals (again, you have little chance anyway, they are professionals after all) but rely on the police, where the police has such overwhelming force that no reasonable person would try to fight them.

Given crime statistics, the European approach appears to result in a lot less crime and violence.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#305

Post by aninhumer »

archon wrote: post #272
jlgreco wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, as an American, either position strikes me as irrational. The chances of being the victim of random violent in either country is not worth worrying about. My habit of jaywalking probably puts me in far more danger than either not having a weapon in the UK or simply living in the US where others do, but I rarely give jaywalking a second thought.

> either position strikes me as irrational. Right. Because they are both irrational. Fear isn't a rational thing. I think both tehwalrus's comment and mine are two very different responses to the same fear. tehwalrus fears being surrounded by people who are "armed to the teeth, legally." I fear being surrounded by people who are armed to the teeth, illegally. tehwalrus would rather those people not be armed at all. I…

>I assume that no law will ever make firearms magically inaccessible to criminals.

Sure, it is not impossible to own a gun in the UK, but the laws do make it a lot more difficult. Because there's no legal supply, they're harder to get hold of, and even if a criminal does, they're taking a significant risk every time they carry it around. It just isn't worthwhile for random petty criminals to carry a gun in the same way as in the US. The result is that criminals having guns simply isn't something that people in the UK worry about, to the extent that we are even comfortable with an unarmed police force.

Of course the big difference between the US and the UK is the number of guns available. Making guns as inaccessible in the US as they are in the UK would be a phenomenal undertaking, and likely would result temporarily in the "only outlaws have guns" scenario from pro-gun rhetoric. It would be nice if there was a gradual path you guys could take, but realistically you're probably just stuck with them.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#306

Post by bulatb »

TomGullen wrote: post #283
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google+, the Play Store and many other services are not open. In some cases, they may have APIs, but they are not open APIs. They have closed down more open platforms, such as Reader, in favor of the more closed platforms, like Google+. That doesn't mean they are a closed company today , but I believe they've turned the corner. Just like Facebook has a lot of OSS projects but isn't an "open company", I think Google h…

What evidence do you have that they give preferential treatment of their own services in search results? (Hopefully you can provide something more concrete than a suspicion or anecdotal evidence). Everything I've read suggests google throws themselves in with everyone else in search results. They even penised one of their own sites once to keep it fair.

They did what?

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#307

Post by pron »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #178
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #16

You cannot wield the kind of economic power Google does and not be evil, at least for the working definition many people have of "evil". We've put a huge hunk of our intellectual and economic capital under the control of a marketing company. I really, really like Google, but I don't see this situation as being stable over a period of decades. Maybe 5-10 more years or so, but not a lot longer. These kinds of decisions…

>This is the same way you'd criticize a king, somebody you are beholden to. "Golly! I know you, the king, are not at fault, but some of these advisers of yours must have accidentally goofed up somewhere..." I don't buy it. People don't criticize a king at all . You don't criticize the communist party in Stalinist Russia, tactfully or otherwise. Doing that gets you sent to the gulag. The reason people say that it was…

This is just beautiful. I don't know the facts to this case, and neither do you, and yet you assume that what could bery much be a political action by a non-democratic corporation is either a mistake or a result of government intervention. But get this: large corporations can do whatever the hell they feel like. If they want to advertise abortion clinics but not come-back-to-Jesus ads because that's their political view, that's exactly what they'll do. And while they do have some incentive to take a customer's money, they have other incentives, too, like enforcing their political views without answering to anyone. True, they do have obligations to their shareholders, but no one will yell too loudly if they're turning a $1B profit rather than the $1.1B that they could have, and there's a lot of political influence forgoing that $0.1B could get you. And they don't even have to pass laws that you say Congress is so fond of passing.

Some people feel that the free market ensures fair behavior in spite of being shown the opposite again and again. Free market gives rise to monopolies or non-monopolies with too much power, and those companies don't have to operate by the same rules anymore. This is where the invisible hand hypothesis fails: To the powerful players, a dollar is not the same as a dollar to you because they have enough power to change the market. Set the rules of the game, if you like.

That's why I'll always take government red tape over corporate red tape. That's why I'll take government corruption over corporate corruption. True, even in a democracy money buys influence, but at least the players are often required to give a good explanation. But a corporation, as long as it's very profitable, can behave like a dictator -- benevolent or otherwise.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#308

Post by polyfractal »

Zak wrote: post #292
tehwalrus wrote: post #205

(from UK, and happy to accept your downvotes): I'm shocked that people litteraly sell knives designed to hurt people on the internet, and that people on HN come to the defence of these arms dealers . I assumed this was about kitchen knives when I clicked on the link. The US constitution was written with a right to bear arms so people could overthrow the government , not protect themselves from criminals. Since then,…

To provide a rather different perspective, I was born and raised in Alaska where pretty much everybody has several guns. Granted, many of those guns are designed more for killing bears and moose than people, but they'll do the job, and most people have a combat-oriented pistol or two. I got a rifle for my fifth birthday. I'm shocked that people litteraly sell knives designed to hurt people on the internet, and that p…

> A large minority of the civilian population would have a much easier time deposing the government and instituting a new one than a foreign state (or group of US states attempting to secede) would. [...] A large minority of the population rising up against the government would likely gain the support of some of the military and could blend in with the rest of the population when not fighting.

I think this is pretty rosy-colored view of what would happen. A "large minority" would have to be several hundred thousand people, perhaps a few million. Anything less is just a radical cult that will promptly be put down...and everyone will say "thank goodness" as they watch on the evening news. If something big enough happens that a few million people take up arms, you have a full blown civil war and things are totally different.

Stockpiling guns and weapons is the opiate of libertarians - "it's fine, I have the weaponry I need to overthrow the government if things get bad enough". In reality, you have a better chance fighting zombies than successfully overthrowing the government through violent means.

To be clear, I have nothing against guns. I'll probably purchase one once I've moved into a more rural area. But I'm under no illusion that the weapon will ever be useful in deposing any government.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#309

Post by corresation »

Zak wrote: post #248
corresation wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the OP explains, the knives in question are not illegal and not in violation of Google's policies They ARE in a clear violation of Google's policy which prohibits selling knives as weapons. They seem to have some confusion about the word of the ban, but as I linked elsewhere - http://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/176077?hl=en This is not at all unclear. The examples of banned knives are not the exhaustiv…

I disagree; the policy is unclear. It mentions several categories of knives that are legally restricted in many jurisdictions. It then goes on to say that the promotion of swords and kitchen knives is allowed. Based on the OP's claims, it appears that utility pocket knives are allowed as long as they don't have assisted opening. It's also not clear from this page that Google has a problem with the use of adwords to s…

The policy is completely clear: Knives that could best be described as weapons are not allowed. People do buy knives as weapons, but it's pretty rare for people to buy swords as weapons (instead they're decorative), so that difference is completely explainable.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#310

Post by rquantz »

quanticle wrote: post #297
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>By your logic, every government that manages to survive is serving with the "consent of the governed". Nope, only the ones whose people could in practice overthrow the government but choose not to. Governments with loyal soldiers and modern military hardware, or even just a local monopoly on WWII-era military hardware, are not going to be seriously threatened by citizens who are prohibited from owning weapons. No su…

They're not especially threatened by citizens permitted to own firearms either. Do you really think that the average gun-owning homeowner can go toe to toe with a soldier who has armor support, air superiority, years of training, and, most importantly, modern military logistics backing him up? And before you bring up insurgencies, let me remind you that successful insurgencies are marked by two features: 1. the occup…

People often talk about the impossibility of armed revolt in a modern nuclear state. "You'd be killed on the first day," they tell me (not that I'm advocating armed revolt here, just to be clear). What they forget is that an armed revolt in the United States would still be chiefly a political act. America would have the eyes of the world on it, and there would be propaganda from both sides. America of today would be hesitant to bring the full force of its military down on a militant group if the group could successfully paint themselves as freedom fighters.

This would only work if the revs were in response to a truly tyrannical act, say if a president were to declare a state of emergency and indefinitely suspend elections. Think of the Arab Spring, Waco Texas, or the negative response to police brutality on the OWS protestors. Think of the imagery (and it would of course be filmed) of a hardy group of patriots facing off against tanks and bombers. These are powerful political images and could bring in diplomatic pressure, outside military aid, etc.

I'm not saying a revolt is likely likely to succeed, I'm just saying it more complicated than a cut and dry, "they have bigger guns, so the revolutionaries lose."

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